Spotlight: Presidential system could increase risk of conflict in Turkey: analysts

An unyielding push for a presidential system in Turkey by the ruling party, at a time when the country is facing a plethora of crises both at home and abroad, seriously risks deepening the polarization in society to a point of conflict, analysts have warned.

"This system may further endanger the integrity of Turkey which already has some major ethnic and religious fault lines," observed Bican Sahin, president of the Ankara-based Freedom Research Association.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is seeking to replace the country's parliamentary system with an executive presidency.

That indicates, as earlier remarks by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed, a president in charge without strong checks and balances.

The AKP government and the president have long been criticized by opposition parties and the West for an increasing trend of authoritarianism and growing pressure over the judiciary and freedom of speech and the press.

In the view of Sahin, also a professor of political science with Hacettepe University in Ankara, the minorities in Turkey may feel more alienated in a presidential system as the winner takes all in it.

"The presidential system is more appropriate for societies with less ethnic and religious cleavages," he opined.

Turkey has long been grappling with a Kurdish ethnic problem, while Alevis represent the country's major religious minority whose members are devout supporters of secularism.

Alevis, many Kurds and those who advocate a secular way of life feel more and more alienated in the Islamist AKP-ruled Turkey.

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) are vehemently opposing a shift to the presidential system, arguing that it would lead to an authoritarian one-man rule.

The HDP, whose two co-chairs and eight other deputies were recently arrested on charges of having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is the third biggest party in the parliament.

Despite the clamor, only some unconfirmed details about the AKP proposal have so far appeared in the Turkish press. The government is working on a fortified presidential system, government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus said this month.

According to some recent reports, the president under the new system will be entitled to select half the members of the Constitutional Court as well as the country's top judicial board, the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors. The heads of universities will also be tapped by the president.

A draft proposal about the constitutional amendments, which the AKP recently presented to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for negotiations, also reportedly authorizes the president to dissolve the parliament.

"The system proposed by the ruling party is more conflict-prone (as compared to the current parliamentary system)," remarked Ersin Kalaycioglu, a political scientist with Sabanci University in Istanbul.

According to a survey made public early this year, the polarization among supporters of Turkey's major political parties was alarmingly high.

Seventy-six percent of those polled did not want to become neighbors with voters of a party they dislike, showed the survey by the Corporate Social Responsibility Association.

And 83 percent of the respondents said they would not want their daughters to marry a man who supports a party they disapprove.

The adoption of the presidential system would not only aggravate the already very high polarization in society, but could also risk disintegrating the nation, some fear.

A major problem that risks increasing the country's fragility is the decades-old fight against the PKK which aims to establish an independent Kurdish state in the country's Kurds-dominated southeast.

The Kurds, with an estimated population of nearly 20 million in Turkey, have felt deeply frustrated following the collapse last year of a peace process that had lasted for more than two years.

Meanwhile, Turkey has plunged militarily into war-torn Syria and strained its relations with the United States, the European Union and Iraq, and faced at home a divided society and a slowing economy.

If things go on this way and the polarization persists, a civil war would break out in Turkey within four to five years, Ismail Hakki Pekin, a former general who headed the intelligence unit of the Turkish General Staff, warned on Halk TV early this month.

He referred to the fact that a significant portion, or 6-7 percent, of the country's population are radical Islamists who support the Islamic State (IS).

"A civil war in Turkey would be worse than the one the former Yugoslavia suffered," he remarked.

Yugoslavia got dismembered following a civil war in the 1990s, in which tens of thousands of people were killed.

The opposition CHP also argues that an executive presidency would lead to the disintegration of Turkey.

In response, Prime Minister and AKP head Binali Yildirim claimed that the country would in fact risk getting disintegrated if it does not turn to the presidential system.

Neither party leader, however, elaborated on why he thinks the country would face such a dire situation.

The road leading to the presidential system will not be smooth for the AKP, as the issue will come before voters for a referendum should the amendments pass in parliament.

More than 50 percent votes are needed in the plebiscite. According to a recent survey by Sonar polling company, 56 percent of the public is against the proposed presidential system.

Generally around 65 percent of the voters in Turkey vote for right-wing parties, of which the AKP is the dominant element, while the rest support left-wing parties such as the CHP and the HDP. The AKP has been in power since late 2002.

Noting the AKP's draft proposal as reported by the media does not have a strict separation of powers while bestowing extensive powers on the presidency, Sahin stated, "This is not in conformity with the liberal democratic principles."

Following a failed coup in July, the Turkish government imposed an emergency rule and has dismissed tens of thousands of public servants for alleged links to the Gulen movement.

Companies owned by sympathizers of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish cleric who is accused by Ankara of masterminding the coup attempt, were also seized by the state.

Some media outlets have been shuttered by the government while journalists were arrested in the ongoing crackdown.

Erdogan, who headed the AKP governments for years before being elected president in 2014, has often been criticized for his lust for power.

It is widely argued that Erdogan seeks to obtain a legal shield through a shift to the executive presidency, as he knows he will have to face heavy charges in court should he lose power.

The president has often been threatened by the opposition that he would be called to account on various charges, including violating the constitution, corruption, and interfering with the government and the judiciary.

After winning the presidency in 2014, Erdogan revealed his favor of a judiciary in harmony with the executive.

The MHP is the only party apparently ready to support the AKP in parliament for the constitutional amendments regarding the presidential system.

At least 330 votes are needed for the amendments to be taken to a referendum. The AKP has 317 seats in parliament, while the MHP has 39.

Despite MHP leader Devlet Bahceli's positive approach toward the AKP proposal, four deputies from his party have already voiced their opposition to the amendments.

More MHP lawmakers are expected to say nay, as until recently the MHP, including its leader, was a staunch supporter of the parliamentary system in place.

According to press reports, the MHP will oppose several articles of the draft proposal, including the president's authority to dissolve the parliament.

Some also maintain that there may well be undisclosed sympathizers of the Gulen movement among AKP deputies, who would also vote against the amendments.

Erdogan is the first president of Turkey who was elected by popular vote, so the AKP argues that the president should have more power for this reason.

AKP officials have indirectly admitted on several occasions that it is Erdogan who calls all the shots in the government.

Their argument is that this de-facto situation should be provided with a legal base by the adoption of the presidential system.

Under the current constitution, the president is required, after election, to cut off ties with the party he belongs to so as to act impartially.

The secular CHP sees the AKP's move as an effort to revamp the political regime rather than a simple change in the government system.

"(The switch to) the presidential system is a discussion on the regime. We will not allow anyone who is in favor of a dictatorial regime rather than democracy to go ahead," CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said on Twitter last week.

Sabanci's Kalaycioglu feels the CHP argument is not an exaggeration. He also thinks Turkey would not look much different from what it is today as the country is already being ruled in a de-facto presidential system in which Erdogan has the final say on all issues.

The CHP leader even used stronger language earlier this year to underline the party's resolve to oppose the AKP plan. He said, "You can't introduce such a presidential system in this country without shedding blood."

Turkey is now deeply divided along the secularist and Islamist fault line. Many fear the AKP is planning to transform the country into a theocratic state and settle accounts with the secular Republic which was founded in 1923 on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

Remarks uttered by some leading AKP figures, who have long talked about a "Project New Turkey," reveal their dislike of the secular Turkish republic.

Speaker of Parliament Ismail Kahraman, an AKP deputy, said back in April that the principle of secularism should be removed from the constitution.

If the AKP proposal is accepted in the referendum, the new system will go into effect in 2019 when the next presidential election is due.

Based on current voter preferences, Erdogan, supported by around half the voters, is quite likely to win the race again.

He is also hated by the remaining half that was conceded last year by Bulent Arinc, then deputy prime minister of the AKP government.

A switch to the executive presidency could also be costly for Turkey in foreign policy, many are concerned, as the legislative control over the executive will be very much limited as compared with a parliamentary system.

"What if the person who has all the power drags the country into a disaster?" CHP's Kilicdaroglu demanded recently. Endit